


dream symbols

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4536837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>jack goes to neo domino but it's no more clean than satellite ever was.</p>
<p>implications of godwinjack, jayuu, jackiryuu</p>
            </blockquote>





	dream symbols

The first thing Godwin did after Jack had crossed over to Neo Domino was to give him an identification card. It had his picture, snapped from the side — that made him wonder, for just how long had Jaeger and Godwin been watching him? — and underneath it just his name: Jack. Date of Birth: ?, Height: ?, Weight: ?, Eye Color: Prpl, Hair Color: Blond, License: n/a.

"This person," Godwin says, "Won't exist in a year."

And it's true. In a year the ID card says _Jack Atlas_ and lists his date of birth as some random day in March (White Day, actually), his height and weight as 191cm 72kg, his license type as 5, with a crisp 12 digit driver's license number printed in official ink. 

"Atlas was the titan who held up the sky," Godwin gestures out across the city, to the water and they both know that Satellite sits like a cluster of mud and debris on the horizon. (And, between them, the incomplete Daedalus Bridge.) "He governed the moon, and faced to the west."

"Just the sky and the moon?" Jack asks — he had long ago learned how to project his voice, but under Godwin's tutelage he'd learned about the art of the vocal sneer, as well. "Pathetic. I'm aiming for the whole world."

"There's the king we need." Godwin clasps his hand on Jack's shoulder, his thumb makes small circles against Jack's back. (Jack would probably be more comfortable with a knife edge back there.)

* * *

A year after Jack arrived to the city, his restlessness calls him out to the moonlight. The sky is clear and while Neo Domino's lights swallow the stars, the moon shines bright. It's a swollen moon, looking fuller than full and for not the first time in his life, Jack feels too small and insignificant underneath it.

(He doesn't know that Crow has also taken a last name — Hogan, that Yuusei has finally gotten a television to pirate broadcasts from Neo Domino and that people in Satellite cheer for him, but only because they know where he came from.)

(Jack thinks about the after-party of his recent duel, where pretty women and men with too much money have told him how great he is. And how they laughed about the uneducated and the poor and how those with nothing deserve it.)

(He hasn't, quite, committed to believing in that.)

* * *

Jack dreams about Satellite.

In the large bed that he can't even touch both sides if he spreads his arms he dreams about the small cramped bed he used to share at Martha's house. He dreams — or remembers — tangles of limbs and the way Crow snored and the string of guilty words Yuusei would murmur in his sleep and he even (definitely) thinks about Kiryuu waking in the middle of the night and leaning down over him, finger pressed to his lips, with an invitation in his hand.

Often, he dreams about Yuusei, in ways he never thought of Yuusei before. (Because Rally had always been so sure that Yuusei was special, Yuusei was the key to making Satellite a better, brighter place and Jack had always scoffed at that.)

In some dreams, it's Yuusei who takes Jack by the hand and leads him down to the shore. Satellite's shore is covered in debris and it's all refuse that Jack recognizes — Martha's old stove, Dr. Schmidt's car, the scraps of the motorcycle Yuusei thought he would make — the large flat curves of metal people used for gravemarkers because stone was expensive and difficult to carve, but scrap metal was everywhere. And it's Yuusei who leans him down between the scrap and says, you shouldn't have left, how dare you do that to us, we needed you here, I won't chase you, come home. And Jack, who is always betrayed by his dream-self, promises to return home and welcomes Yuusei's clumsy bruising hands on his hips and thighs.

(Those are the better dreams.)

In others, it's Jack who leans over Yuusei and tells him how he's disappointed him. But there's something else behind Yuusei's eyes in those dreams and his left hand is cold like metal.

(And, in those dreams, Yuusei will always call him _my king_ and Jack will wake and avoid Godwin for as long as he can.)

* * *

(Jack doesn't know it, but in a little over three weeks time he'll see Yuusei again.)

The new moon makes the sky look empty, but Jack figures he must be dreaming because even the lights of Neo Domino are dim. And it's in the dark that Jack sees Kiryuu. Kiryuu raises a finger to his lips _shhh_ but then holds out his other hand, fingers curled upwards slightly.

"You're dead." Jack says.

Kiryuu's grin splits his face in half and it reminds Jack of why he left. "Do I look dead?"

And, he does. Kiryuu's skin is ashen and the criminal marker on his face is bright red, like blood, and his eyes are dark and shadowed.

"You're dead." Jack says again. Kiryuu laughs and the sound bounces off the overly fancy 'porch' of Jack's penthouse apartment. If sound could leave a mark, Jack would expect to see dirt on the walls and ground, as if stained by Kiryuu's mere presence.

"Wonder who's fault that is." Kiryuu moves closer, gestures at the patio, the expanse of the city, Jack's bedroom. "Got yourself a fancy set up here. But isn't it showing off a little, Jack?"

"I deserve this." Jack counters. 

"You deserve this," Kiryuu echoes and then — because that's how dreams work, isn't it? — he's right beside Jack with his arm around his shoulders, fingers tracing the band of leather Jack wears around his neck. "Do you know what else you deserve?"

(Jack has always known.)

Kiryuu's fingers are cold. His skin is too pliant but his veins stand out underneath his flesh like hard cables. Jack realizes, when Kiryuu's pressed against his back, that he doesn't have a pulse. They don't kiss and he's glad for that.

The rooftop railing is too short. It would just take a push for them both to topple over the edge and Jack knows that Kiryuu has always been to careless and maybe it's because it's a dream or because he's dead but he seems even more reckless. 

"Nice kingdom, King." Kiryuu insists though, and they both lean over the railing edge and Kiryuu hooks his fingers into the collar around Jack's neck. It's stifling and strangling and Jack bristles, but doesn't shove him off. "How does it feel to rule over something that's going to get destroyed, soon?"

"What are you talking about? The city isn't going anywhere. If anything gets destroyed it will be that eyesore over there."

(Satellite, in the distance, swallowed by the dark of night.)

"You're born and bred Satellite," Kiryuu sighs, but it's fond in the way that only Kiryuu can be. Jack remembers when the team had first come together and Kiryuu had seemed worldwise and a true leader, the kind of person Jack could model himself after. Kiryuu could have been a king, once. (Until Jack had surpassed him.) "The filth is all over you."

Jack elbows him, then, means to turn around and punch him properly but Kiryuu still has a hold on the collar and jerks Jack's head down, forces him to look at the street below.

"Are you seeing what I see?" Kiryuu asks, reaches around Jack and waves his free hand down at the empty street. Jack only sees the same street he sees every day, just another part of Neo Domino, swept clean and kept illuminated by street lamps.

"The city." He grinds out.

"A graveyard." Kiryuu laughs, finally lets go of Jack's collar, but his fingers crawl up Jack's neck to his face. He swats them away, finally turning, because he doesn't want Kiryuuu at his back, never again.

"I always knew you'd try to get out." Kiryuu continues, "How does it feel? Do you feel cleaner for trying to leave everything behind? For leaving _the team_ behind?"

You're always so selfish, Jack could have said, but instead he laughs. A short laugh, wrapped up in all of Godwin's lessons on being an untouchable king. "You were obsolete." Insane. Not worth it, in the end. _You're dead._

(He regrets leaving the team, though.)

"They'll all see you for what you are." Kiryuu predicts, "You've never been a very good liar."

Jack hits him, because he's tired of being ordered around by a dream, of Kiryuu's clammy skin against his, of the uncomfortable pressure in his chest that keeps dropping down his spine and making him feel vulnerable.

Dark, blackish blood leaks from the corner of Kiryuu's mouth after he's been hit. (It reminds Jack of the time Security came down near Martha's to fish a bloated corpse out of the nearby sewer resevoir and one of the long metal hooks they had used to pull the body out caught on the skin and ripped it, rotten blood drained into the already dirty water.)

"Like how we saw what you were?!" Jack demands. He feels his own anger and his anger for Crow and Yuusei and for the kids they had been when they had still adored Kiryuu. For a moment it seems as though Kiryuu will get angry in return, his eyes widen and narrow and then he bows his head and his shoulders shake.

"See you around, Jack." Kiryuu's crooked smile turns even sharper, when he raises his head to look Jack in the eye again. "Sooner than you think."

* * *

When Jack wakes from his dream he showers, dresses, goes to meet Godwin. He doesn't step out onto the patio, so he misses the black blood stain on the cement, near the rooftop railing. It will rain that day and wash the blood clean and Jack will forget all about his dreams because the Fortune Cup is coming.

(But the next time he sees Kiryuu, somehow, he'll understand the feeling of betrayal a little more intimately.)


End file.
